NCERT introduces theatre, music and drama Class 8 courses; art made compulsory

National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) released a notification that theatre, music and drama will be introduced from class 8th as compulsory subjects and introduced art as compulsory material. NCERT's all-round curriculum makeover will be in practice from the year 2025-2026.

 

This aligns with the standards set in the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCF-SE) 2023. This is due to its intention to give children a great, well-rounded education that incorporates arts and creative learning and conventional scholastic learning.

 

NCERT announced that "Art" would henceforth be re-oriented as a mandatory subject for Class 8. That is, all the children would have to study and pass the subject and move to the next year of school if they wished to or not, or if they had been schooled to anything close to art or not.

 

NEW TEXTBOOK 'KRITI' UNVEILED FOR CLASS 8

For this revolution, NCERT has introduced a new art book, 'Kriti'. It would be course de force of education to provide performing and visual arts. It would be utilized for giving students to theatre, music, drama, and introduction to art.

 

Kriti is a right move towards giving arts to school so that subjects which are innovative in nature receive as much importance as study subjects.

 

NEW CLASS 8 TEXT BOOKS RELEASED IN HINDI AND ENGLISH

Apart from Kriti, NCERT released new language books of Class 8 too. They are 'Poorvi', the revised new English book, and 'Malhar', the new book of Hindi. The books are for disseminating learning languages with new textbooks in the NCF-SE 2023 pattern.".

 

For below-average sections of Class 5 students, NCERT has introduced 'Santoor' for English and 'Veena' for Hindi to complement the overall exercise to rationalize education in modern form at all stages.

 

POLICY Alignment with NEP 2020

This also goes with overall reforms suggested under the NEP 2020, such as greater focus on experiential learning, creativity, and arts. With these subjects being covered from the very earliest years of secondary school, NCERT is trying to bring in total development among students.

 

All in all, it is a paradigm shift in education policy in India with the same amount of stress being given on intellectual as on creative growth.